Jakarta – Per-capita income in Indonesia in the year 2000 stood at between 600 and 700 dollars, almost no improvement over 1999, according to a senior government economist.

"We are still computing the per-capita income of the Indonesian population, but it is estimated to range around 600 and 700 dollars," Kusmadi Saleh, the deputy chairman of the Central Statistics Bureau, told the Media Indonesia daily.

The figure for the year 2000 would not be much different from that in 1999, which was at 690 dollars, he said.

Indonesia's per-capita income took a drastic blow with the onslaught of the financial crisis that swept Asia, including Indonesia, in mid 1997.

Per-capita income in 1997 as the crisis began to bite into the economy was at 1,095 dollars. In 1996, the figure was at 1,155 dollars. When the crisis peaked in 1998, per-capita income plunged by more than half to 508 dollars.

Saleh said that with a per-capita income of about 700 dollars, Indonesians would earn an average of some 58 dollars per month. "This income is still low compared to before the crisis, but better that in 1998," he said.

The chairman of the Central Statistics Bureau, Sudarti Surbakti, meanwhile said that the preliminary results of a population census showed that there were at least 203.45 million Indonesians registered in the year 2000.

But he indicated that there were large gaps in the census information. "For this census, we were unable to register the data of people living in critical conflict areas such as the district of North Aceh and Pidie, Sambas [in West Kalimantan], Posom in Central Maluku, Ambon and in the Jayawijaya district [in Irian Jaya]," Surbakti said.

The ratio of men to women were almost balance, the census results showed with men numbering 101.64 million and women at 101.81 million, Surbakti said according to the Media Indonesia.

The census also showed that the country's population growth in the decade that ended in 2000 stood at an average of 1.35 percent, or lower than the average for the previous decade of 1.97 percent.

She said that Java remained the island with the highest population density, with 59.167 percent of Indonesians living on the island, and an average population density of 946 people per square kilometre.

The special territory of Jakarta had the country's highest population density with 12,628 people per square kilometre, she said.

Indonesia is the world's fourth largest nation in terms of population after China, India, and the United States of America.